Eric Kearney out as Ed FitzGerald's running mate for governor's race

Tuesday

Dec 10, 2013 at 12:01 AMDec 10, 2013 at 10:04 PM

Dogged by his personal tax problems, state Sen. Eric Kearney today pulled out as running mate for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ed FitzGerald. In an interview this afternoon, FitzGerald said that he and Kearney made the decision together on Monday after deciding that continuing negative publicity "had gotten to the point where it was just drowning out any other discussion we wanted to have."

In an interview this afternoon, FitzGerald said he and Kearney made the decision together on Monday after deciding that continuing negative publicity “had gotten to the point where it was just drowning out any other discussion we wanted to have.”

FitzGerald said he has not chosen a replacement running mate for Kearney, but might do so by month’s end, or at least before mid-January. The candidate filing deadline is early February.

FitzGerald said he already had vetted other potential running mates in the process that led him to name Kearney, but he declined to name them: “We’re not starting from the ground floor, but we’re deliberating as much as we need to.”

Kearney quit the ticket under growing pressure from forces within and outside the Democratic Party, finally relenting to the reality that his lieutenant governor candidacy had become a drag on FitzGerald’s chances of beating Republican Gov. John Kasich in the November election.

“It’s undeniable that this has come to be a distraction from a discussion of the vital issues facing Ohio, and the choice voters must make in this election,” Kearney said in a long written statement released by the FitzGerald campaign. “The stakes are too high: we need a change of leadership to move Ohio in a new direction that puts more Ohioans back to work and builds a better future for our children.

“I have discussed this with Ed FitzGerald, and while I will always be grateful for him selecting me to be his running mate, we agree that the best course of action is for me to step aside from the campaign for lieutenant governor and focus on serving the people of the Ninth Senate district."

FitzGerald said he was aware of the scope of Kearney’s debts before selecting him as his running mate, but made the mistake of believing that the press and public would draw a distinction between the taxes owed by Kearney’s company and those he personally owed.

“The campaign was aware of his personal liens and aware that the business had significant liens and I did not feel that he was not forthcoming in the way the information was provided,” FitzGerald said. “I suppose if we made a political error, it’s that we did not anticipate that the political process would make no distinction whatsoever between the finances of the business and Sen. Kearney’s personal finances or his wife’s finances.”

Ohio Republican spokesman Chris Schrimpf said FitzGerald should “leave the race” over this, that Fitzgerald committed “a huge disservice to Senator Kearney and his family” by failing to fully vet him.

The Cincinnati senator’s withdrawal was announced 20 days after FitzGerald had selected Kearney as his running mate on Nov. 20. Amid much fanfare, they embarked the next two days on a multi-city tour to herald the new ticket.

The selection of Kearney, who is African-American, was praised for the geographical and racial balance he brought to the ticket. But the positive reviews quickly were washed away by revelations that Kearney, his wife, and the Cincinnati publishing company they owned owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid federal and state taxes.

Kearney and the campaign downplayed the debts and initially did not fully disclose their amount. But in a damaging series of reports, The Dispatch and other Ohio newspapers, using public records, unearthed that the taxes owed by the Kearneys and their company approached $1 million. Moreover, while failing to pay payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, and other taxes, the Kearneys wrote personal checks for thousands of dollars to political campaigns.

In a 95-minute conference call with reporters last Wednesday, Kearney emailed detailed spreadsheets to lay out his tax obligations, repeatedly saying he was providing an “ unprecedented” amount of information to the public about his financial situation. The spreadsheets showed a total of more than $825,000 in tax liabilities.

FitzGerald said the brouhaha over Kearney’s tax situation set a new standard for the rest of the campaign, in that “there will be no separation now between the individual candidate and the business they have an interest in or the wife of a candidate and the business she is involved.”

Without revealing specifics, FitzGerald said that standard could come back to haunt the Republican Party and specifically Kasich and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor. Before his election as governor in 2010, Kasich was a Columbus-based executive for Lehman Brothers when its collapse in 2007 precipitated the Great Recession.

“All I can say is stay tuned,” FitzGerald said. “You play by the rules that are established. You don’t get to write your own rules and the rules change.”

Republicans, suggesting that FitzGerald rushed the Kearney announcement to head off reports that his candidacy had gotten a lukewarm reception from black leaders, questioned whether FitzGerald knew the scope of Kearney’s tax liabilities.

“To be clear,” Kearney said in last week’s conference call, “I provided all of this information to the campaign.”

During that same call, he vowed to remain on the ticket: “I’m in to stay. My wife and I made the decision that we’re going to do this and we’re going to do it.”

Hours after that call, the editorial board of FitzGerald’s hometown newspaper, The Plain Dealer, voted unanimously to recommend that Kearney quit or be dropped from the ticket. Two days later, the editorial page of the Youngstown Vindicator also said Kearney’s failure to pay taxes disqualified him to be lieutenant governor, opining that “no amount of explanations will satisfy a public already disillusioned with government.”

Also on Friday, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, Ohio’s top-elected Democrat, conceded that with Kearney on the ticket FitzGerald will have less credibility to attack Kasich’s tax policies as hurtful to the middle class.

The pressure mounted on Monday when Kearney’s home newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, called upon him to quit the race, saying that “Ohioans deserve a vigorous discussion on (Kasich’s tax policies) free of the baggage that Kearney’s personal tax issues would bring.”

By late last week, political observers in Ohio and nationally were speculating that Kearney’s departure from the ticket was imminent, so today’s announcement was not unexpected.